Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe’s takeaways from North Carolina’s win over Gonzaga

North Carolina beat both the refs and Gonzaga on Monday to win the sixth national championship in school history, emerging at the end of a rather ugly game with a 71-65 victory.

Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe reacted to the whistle party on Tuesday's episode of Undisputed. Here were their biggest takeaways from the game.

FS1

Skip Bayless

The Heels should thank their lucky stars

Skip called the Heels' title "as unimpressive a run by a No. 1 seed ... as I can ever remember" before recounting the many times UNC benefited from some good fortune.

"Second round, Joel Berry got away with an outrageous either charge or a walk ... that completely turned the game against the Arkansas Razorbacks. ... Against Kentucky, Carolina’s up 7 with 54 seconds left and I thought it was over. ... And all of a sudden, you go to the last seconds and the game is tied. And who ended the game for Carolina? The walk-on, Luke Maye. … (Against Oregon) your two best players, Joel Berry and Kennedy Meeks, each go to the free throw line with under five seconds left and they each miss two free throws and Oregon fails each time to box out and doesn’t cash in on two chances to go win the game."

To cap it off, Skip said, "somehow, Carolina won the championship last night going 4-for-27 from the 3-point line. And they missed 11 free throws. ... And (they) cut down the nets. It’s pretty incredible."

David J. PhillipAP photo

Shannon Sharpe

This is why you need upperclassmen

You won't always win pretty, and North Carolina was built to overcome some adversity, Shannon said.

"When the rubber needed to meet the road, the upperclassmen, this is what you need. Unless you got a Carmelo Anthony who’s a transcendent freshman, you gotta have some upperclassmen that know how to dig in. When it came down to it, Joel Berry is a junior, hit a big 3-point shot. Justin Jackson (a junior) when they were down two (with 1:40 to go), guess what, he got a 3-point play, put 'em up one. They’re (up one in the final minute), Isaiah Hicks, a senior, got the basket."

David J. PhillipAP photo

Skip Bayless

The refs were so bad, it brought Skip and LeBron together

LeBron James joined the chorus of people criticizing the whistle-happy refs on Monday. And at long last, Skip found something to agree with him about.

"He is so right about this. It’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with anything LeBron has ever said in his life, but he is right about this. It’s why this tournament is so hard for me to watch, because college basketball is so over-refereed year after year after year."

The second half was particularly atrocious, with both teams getting into the bonus in the first five minutes.

"There were 27 fouls called last night in the last 20 minutes of the game. It’s just too many."

David J. PhillipAP photo

Shannon Sharpe

An over-refereed product is just not watchable

If you're looking to be entertained by a sporting event, what you saw Monday wasn't it, Shannon said.

"I’m looking at it, Skip. 44 fouls called. 52 free throw attempts. 46 made field goals. How am I supposed to sit around and watch like, 'Oh man, this is going to be a great game.'"

Aside from disturbing the flow, the abundance of fouls puts college players — with only five fouls to work with — in trouble more quickly."

"The over-officiating is everything because if you get your star in foul trouble at the end of the half with three," Skip said, "he’s gone for a long period of time because you can’t risk four and five."

NCAA PhotosNCAA Photos via Getty Images

Shannon Sharpe

Przemek Karnowski was a non-factor

Gonzaga's imposing big man scored just nine points and shot just 1-of-8 from the field against Carolina's bigs, prompting Skip to call his performance a "disaster."

"The difference in the ballgame (was) Carolina had those bigs," Shannon said. "They had Meeks, they had Hicks, they had (Tony) Bradley. That bothered Kanowski.

"They needed Karnowski to play really big, but he couldn’t get Meeks off the block."

Matt YorkAP photo

Shannon Sharpe

Say what you will, but Carolina got it done

So it was ugly, they may have been hindered — or helped — by hyperactive refs, but you have to give the Heels credit, Shannon said. They managed to win a title shooting 15 percent from 3, 35 percent from the field and under 58 percent from the free-throw line.

"At the end of the day, Carolina found a way to win a ballgame they could’ve easily lost. When you shoot as bad as they did from the field, from the 3-point line and from the free-throw line, you normally lose by double digits. But that just goes to show you how poorly Gonzaga played."